Breakout Read online

  I knew what she meant. Those guards were pigs, honestly. I’d seen how handsy they got with some of the more traditionally beautiful by human standards women that they brought in.

  Nymphs were some of the most truly beautiful beings on the planet, but I don’t think Kallisto was the typical straight, human male’s idea of perfection. Just goes to further show how simple minded they were.

  “Kallisto, I have an idea…”

  “Here we go,” she said, rolling her eyes. Despite how she behaved, I knew that she was very interested in my idea. She’d been here longer than me and it was killing her. A nymph needed to be in nature. It was how they recharged. It was her life force and the longer she was in here, the more it was drained.

  She was fading. As someone who spent 23 hours a day right across from her, I could tell.

  It had been two day since I had overhead the guards’ conversation when mopping the halls. I had kept this info to myself until I could figure out the best way to handle it. Something had happened out there, and it was likely the very reason all of us were in here…

  I had not told Kallisto yet, and I knew she had been in here longer than me and had no idea. I was waiting for the right moment and to be sure the wrong people didn’t overhear us, but if I wanted her to go along with my plan, I was going to need to tell her what I heard.

  I had a feeling that was going to be necessary to convince her it was worth taking the risk of getting caught in order to get out of here. And I also had a feeling if we stayed in here, we were going to end up dead. If not dead, then a fate worse than death, from the looks of it.

  All the more reason to figure out how to get the hell out of here. I had a plan, and it just might work… but I would need some help.

  ***

  I knew when we got to the yard today, I needed to work quickly. There were a few key players to my plan who I needed to talk to before I told Kallisto what was on my mind. If I knew her, I knew she would shoot down anything other than a 100% solid plan. It was essential the plan was throughout vetted before I said anything to her.

  And since they hardly ever gave us our full 30 minutes, I needed to be quick and covert. Couldn’t have anyone else catching wind of my plan, either. Across the yard, I saw just the person I was looking for sitting on a stoop, leaning against the side all of the building.

  As I approached, she nodded hello and I returned, then got very close to ask my question where no one else could hear.

  “Hey Vixxie, if I was able to get my hands on one of those things they used to put these chips in our arms, you think we could get them out?”

  She snorted before replying, “Well yeah, IF you could get one of them away from the guards, then yeah, I suspect we could use it to get these things out of us.”

  “What would you know about how to do that?”

  “About getting them from the guards? Not a damn thing! But if you were able to get one of those thingamabobbers and bring it to me, I bet it has a reverse function on it. And if it don’t, well then, I reckon I could turn it in to one, if given enough time.”

  “Perfect! That’s exactly what I wanted to hear, Vixxie. You are the best.”

  “I am, aren’t I?” she said, a big smile beaming across her face. “Now don’t you go and get yourself dead, you hear?”

  “Never!” I called back to her, already on my way across the yard. If we wanted to get out of this dump, someone was going to have to be proactive about it.

  There were a couple of other women I wanted to ask some questions to, all discreet, of course. With so much time to think and do nothing else, I’d ran the odds on our chances of escape. Unless we were able to get these implants out of our arms and get our powers back, we had a greater chance of winning the lottery.

  While in the yard, I went to check the bushes again. No note. The men were outside today, but I did not see the long-haired man. I hadn’t seen him in days, but I wasn’t giving up hope yet. There was a feeling in my gut that I couldn’t quite shake. Don’t ask me to explain it, but I felt like he was going to come through for me.

  “Don’t look back,” a voice said behind me. I had to fight the urge to look back. For one, it’s instant. Doesn’t everyone feel instantly compelled to do the one thing someone is telling you not to do? I continued staring straight in front of me.

  “I don’t know what you’re up to, but people have noticed you poking around, asking so many questions, looking in bushes. You better watch your back.” I didn’t recognize the voice, which was strange since most of the women in our block I knew by now.

  “Is that a threat?” I asked with my back still turned to the mysterious voice.

  “No, it’s a warning. It ain’t me you got to be afraid of. It’s them guards.” On that ominous note, she walked away.

  As I heard her footsteps and sensed that she was a few steps away, I turned around, but all I could see was a small group of women from the cell block standing in a huddle talking animatedly about something. I moved quickly and looked around them, and there were a few more women milling around, but I really couldn’t be sure who had spoken to me.

  Sighing to myself, I vowed to just be more careful. Did it really matter who it was? It seemed like she was doing me a favor, after all. If she had noticed something suspicious about me, then the guards certainly would, too. I needed to be more careful. I couldn’t have this whole thing falling apart before it got started.

  ***

  I heard muffled cries from somewhere close, and looked to find someone just beside the bushes, curled up in a ball. It was the little blue fairy I’d seen last week. “Hey there, what’s your name?” I said, reaching out to help her up.

  She took my hand and pulled herself to her feet, her crumpled wings stretched out behind her. “Feylinn,” she replied, her soft voice barely audible.

  “Feylinn, that’s a beautiful name. How did you end up in here Feylinn?”

  She looked to the ground and began physically shaking. She really was a timid little thing; far too fragile for this awful place.

  “I didn’t do what they said I did!” Her voice was still soft and low, but defiant.

  “Oh, I know that!” I replied instantly to put her at ease. “No one did what they say we did. Plus, I know that fairies don’t kill. What I was really asking is, do you remember how they brought you in?”

  She calmed a bit more at my words and seemed to open up. “I was helping my mother in the garden. It was our favorite thing to do together. And then ___”

  “That must have been so scary!”

  “Oh yes,” she said, looking down at her hands, wringing them together.

  “I think most of us are scared, Feylinn.”

  She looked up then, “Really?”

  “Definitely. I know some of the women seem big and tough, but we were all kidnapped in similar ways, and no one really knows where we are or why we’re here.”

  “It’s awful,” her tiny voice squeaked, looking down again.

  “It is. You haven’t spoken to anyone since you’ve been here, Feylinn. I’m just curious… what made you open up to me?”

  “You have a nice aura,” she replied, looking up at me, but also kind of around me.

  “You can see my aura?”

  “Yes, it’s a fairy thing,” she nodded.

  “But, I mean, you can see it right now? Even though they put that thing in your arm?”

  “Fairy magic works differently,” she smiled. “Big mean guards don’t know that.”

  Wow! I wanted to ask what other magic she had, but it wasn’t the time. I also didn’t want to be rude when she had just opened up to me.

  “Well, let’s keep that our little secret then,” I said, putting my finger over my lips in a shushing motion.

  “Of, course!” She grinned big then and looked truly happy for the first time in here. No one could be happy to be in Oblivion Penitentiary, but I think she was happy to make a friend.

  I also was happy because I think I had just dis
covered the missing piece to my escape plan. We were busting out of this place soon!

  Chapter Six

  Another night and another day in this awful place. As I scratched the mark for Day 18 into my wall, I wondered how much longer it would be. When would the day come that I did this for the last time? How many more mornings would I rise here before leaving to never have to wake here again?

  Oh, how I hoped that day was coming soon. Not even thoughts of Athena could give me peace at night anymore. I was scared and lonely and determined to get out of here. I wasn’t going to escape by sitting on my ass feeling sorry for myself, so I had been working up a plan.

  If we could all pull together, and if I could get our powers working again, we could make this plan work. But that was a lot of “ifs” and our lives were depending on it. Then again, if we stayed here, how much longer would be make it?

  Maybe I’d be alone in this prison break, but I was going for it anyway. I refused to die alone in here. There were people out there I cared about, and they didn’t even know where I was. Would they look for me?

  Honestly, it’d probably take a while for anyone to even realize I was gone. I lived alone now, since Athena and I had split, and I didn’t tell many people where I had moved to. I’d never gotten around to meeting my neighbors, apart from just a wave when we were passing one another, and there wasn’t anyone that I checked in with on a daily basis.

  The plan was coming together in my head and if it all worked out, I’d be ready to tell Kallisto soon and with her help, hopefully, put the plan into action. One of the only pieces left was from the men’s side. I needed to find out if we were going to have anyone over there helping us.

  That day in the yard was the day. As soon as I came out the doors into the rec area, I saw the men were already there. The dark-skinned man with the long hair was looking toward the door and we made direct eye contact. He nodded and then looked away and instantly, I knew what this sign meant.

  I played it calm and cool and breezed around the rec yard saying hi to people like I would on any other day. But then when I got close to the bushes, I knelt down like I was smelling the flowers that bloomed on it, and instead, I felt around under the bush.

  After feeling around for a bit, my fingers landed on something.

  There it was!

  A piece of paper, folder in half and then folded again. It was the same paper I had written on for him. When I had written him, I had said “rhyddid”. It was Welsh for “freedom” and we used it within my old organization. Part of our training covered what to do if we were ever taken as prisoners of war. Anyone who had been through the same training would understand what that word meant immediately.

  Just two words sat in response to me:

  “I’m in.”

  And that was all the confirmation I needed! Now I could put the final pieces together to stage this breakout. I balled the paper up and put it in my pocket. For the rest of the rec time, I tore very tiny pieces of it off, bit by bit, and sprinkled them all around. It was a windy day, and the barely noticeable pieces drifted away on the breeze, never to be seen again.

  ***

  My mind raced with thoughts of escape for the rest of the time we were in the rec yard, which honestly couldn’t have been the whole fifteen minutes. But what did they care if they gave us the full time or not? These guards were not following the law about anything else, including how they got us here.

  In my head, I was tallying up all the policy violations and civil rights violations that could be brought against this place. I couldn’t wait for my day in court to see these bastards pay for what they were doing. Until then, I had to focus on the here and now – and on the prison break. As long as they had me hear behind bars, I was powerless to do anything else.

  I was jarred out of my thoughts by the sound of the guards bursting through the outer doors. One heavy metal door slammed against the wall in a familiar way. It was one of the only sounds we got in here. We always knew they were coming from all the stomping they did, and we always knew when they were bringing in a new prisoner because of all the yelling they did. That seemed to be precisely what was going on right now.

  They’d been bringing in a lot of new ones lately, actually. Our block was almost completely full, and I suspected the others were getting the same way, although we never saw the other women very much. The longer we were in here and the more of us there were, the more cleaning and chore duties they had to give us. This meant some of us could see more of the building and the other cell blocks and we had been sharing that information with one another.

  A Block was a full house. B had been full, or mostly full. Rumor had it a woman had died over there and now they had an opening. I couldn’t say it would surprise me. This was hardly a place for thriving life.

  As for us, my cell was the only one that did not already have two people in it. I had known that any day now, a new arrival could end up being placed with me. While I enjoyed the solitude under normal circumstances, part of me wished for a cellmate, so that I had someone to talk to during the long hours in here.

  It looked like my new roomie had arrived – kicking and screaming.

  I couldn’t even see her face at first, just a clump of wet, matted blond hair as they drug her down the narrow hallway between the other cells. Her hands were bound behind her back, but her legs were free. Perhaps at one point she had been walking, but now her legs hung limp as they dragged her, holding her by her bent arms.

  “Let me go! Let me go, you bastards!” she screamed as she cried and wiggled in their grip, but they were bigger and stronger than her. And from the looks of it, she had taken quite a beating just to get in those cuffs in the first place.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Kallisto move to the front of her own cell for a better view.

  One of the women further down yelled, “Fresh meat!” and a few echoed her taunts, but they settled down quick when the guards looked in their direction. No one was in the mood for a beating today, I don’t think. The guards would always get hopped up on adrenaline when they brought in a new inmate. Even the most smart-mouthed women in here didn’t want to mess with them on one of those days.

  My cell was three gates down from the entrance to the ward. Even though I knew there was no place else they could be taking this one, I still held my breath and waited as they dragged her down one, two, three gates… and they stood in front of my cell.

  “Hey Sanchez, we brought you a friend,” the short, skinny guard yelled at me as they wrestled with the new woman. They called this one PeeWee. Apparently, he looked like a character from some old TV show and also none of them could pronounce his name, Pachlinksy.

  I’m also pretty sure they’re all idiots. I don’t know why he allowed them to butcher his name and then give him a stupid nickname… all under the guise of fitting in, I suppose.

  “Yeah, thanks boss,” I muttered back to him while rolling my eyes, not that they were listening to me. They were still too busy struggling with her. She was a fighter!

  They opened the door to the cell and threw her inside onto the floor, way harder than necessary. Her body hit with a loud THUMP and the taller guard laughed as he backed out of the door. “Hope you knock yourself out, acting a fool like that!”

  Then they slammed the gate closed as she screamed behind them, lying bloody and bruised on the cold floor. She was in the very same spot I had been in when they first brought me here.

  Looks like I had a new roomie…

  ***

  I gave the new girl some time and space because she was very, very pissed (not that I blame her) and because some people just need time when something terrible like this happens to them. They don’t need someone up in their face right away. Again, this wasn’t the kind of place you wanted to look soft. I had compassion for her, and empathy made me want to run and wrap her in a hug, but my good senses told me to hold off.

  When she had calmed herself a bit, I introduced myself and Kallisto, too.


  “Hey there, those guys are real assholes. You okay?” I sat a couple of feet away on my cot.

  “Look where I am! Do you think I’m okay?” She snapped back.

  “Yeah, right here with you sister. I’m Caleandra. They call me Cale. There’s a cot for you and up there’s our tiny window,” I said, pointing up to the wall with the small barred window. “Welcome to hell.”

  “The real hell is out there,” she said sadly, looking up at me for the first time. I’m Lysa.”

  “Hi Lysa, I wish we were meeting under better circumstances.”

  “Lysa, do you remember when they picked you up?”

  “This morning, I was trying to lay low because everyone knows they are picking up all paranormals. I’ve been so careful to always mask in public, or even by windows at home or anywhere else where they might see me. Never use any abilities in public, never tell anyone who or what you are… I did everything right, but somehow, they still knew. They kicked in my front door when I was having my morning tea. At first, I tried to fight them, but they were prepared. They tackled me and put this thing in my arm with some kind of gun,” she pointed to the implant in her arm which was bleeding.

  “Those things stunt our abilities so we can’t use anything magic or supernatural against them.” I explained.

  “Well, then they put some kind of cloth cover over my head, carried me to a vehicle and brought me here. When they got me back out of the vehicle, I fought with them and the head covering came off. I saw I was here at the prison, but I couldn’t get away.”

  “You saw the outside of the prison?”

  “Yeah…”

  “No one I’ve spoken to in here has seen the outside before. They kept us covered or unconscious on the way inside. Do you think you could tell me about it? What it looks like? If they have guards posted out front? Stuff like that?”

  “Uhh, sure.” She went on to tell me everything she remembered about the front of the prison. I hated to grill her on her first day, but the memories were always best when they were fresh. Even just sleeping on it for one night might cause things to go hazy, especially since they had beaten her.